Miranda - The Admired

She was born with two right thumbs, linked by a soft web of flesh. It seemed as if she was saying: "A-okay, all is fine..." those two thumbs stuck together in an ever hopeful gesture of being "okay". But a few weeks after her birth, the one thumb was non-chalantly removed in a short and decisive surgical procedure. She was suddenly as normal and as plain as all the other babies in the world. There was just the slight scar next to her right thumb that left a vague memory of the extra thumb she once had.

Her name is for the sake of at least having a name: Miranda, meaning: to be admired, derived from Latyn. She says it out loud, tastes the word on her tongue and spits it out at the image of herself in the mirror: Miranda, admired. She has scissors in her right hand. WIth the left hand she holds a strand of long red hair and with one smooth movement from the right hand, she cuts it off. It falls softly to the ground. She feels like crying, but does not stop until she is satisfied that most of her hair is lying at her feet. She feels light and dizzy and as if she could sprout wings. Slowly she turns away from the mirror and walks out of the room. It is intensely cold outside...

Miranda pulls the jacket closer to her body as she walks out into the cold. She opens the door of her second hand Toyota Hilux with the bumps on the back, bonnet and side: scars of her driving expertise. She gets in and starts the ignition, she immediately feels the power surge through the enjin - she loves this, she loves the feeling of power that the bakkie gives her. She loves the fact that she sits higher than most other drivers on the road. It makes her feel like the queen of the road. As she drives, she waves at the cars passing her by, sharing the road with her. She waves and smiles. As if she is indeed the queen of the road. She can see herself dressed in a purple velvet jacket that falls to her ancles. Standing on a hill looking down on the villagers below, her subjects. She is the queen...

Queen of Wands: the queen sits upon a throne with arm rests in the appearance of lions, a symbol of fire and strength. At her feet sits a black cat... Miranda drives on and on through the towns of the North West Province, South Africa. Her mind somewhere lost between the dangling pot-holed roads and the plains stretching as far as the eye can see. She is naked. But no one notices. She is fierce, but no one seems scared. She is fire, but still the cold bites at her innards.

She had a plan, an idea, somewhere in her head, but now she cannot seem to recall it. There was a specific reason why she packed her things and got in the car and started driving. She thinks of the black cat that crossed the street when she was driving through Klerksdorp. She had to swerve out of the road to avoid hitting it. The cat just strolled on as if nothing could touch it... she admires the spirit that resides in cats. What was the plan all about? Yes, sure, getting away. Far away from herself and all that reminds her of who she is. That was part of it. Therefore she cut her hair. She checks herself in the mirror: she looks like a pixie with the short hair and ears sticking out. She smiles at this thought. Focus now, she tells herself. Remember. Think. Start here and work your way back to the beginning... what motivated me to flee? Was I scared? Did something scare me? Is it something in my mind? Something I heard or felt or suspected? Because one can never know anything for sure... so, it must be something I suspected. Did I suspect something about myself or about life?

As Miranda drives past the small towns of the North West province, she thinks of herself as a town. A tiny one-horse town. She is the only inhabitant and she produces all that she needs in the town. She is the tiny red-bricked shop that sells cigarettes and coffee and tea and sugar and pipe tabaccos. She is the post office that receives and delivers post. She is the small church where the big clock chimes each hour, counting off the minutes and days of a life time. And now she is leaving this town. She is leaving all that is familiar behind. Fear of the unknown becomes a very tangible thing in her body. She can feel it creeping up her spine and entering her hands. The scar next to her right thumb starts to itch.

In Wolmaranstadt she stops, gets out the car and enters a rest room next to a garage. The rest room smells of urine and Jik. There is no toilet paper and she shudders as she sits on the toilet, relieving herself, thinking of the germs that could be jumping around. She sees them vividly in purplish black and red colours, jumping on her hands and arms and crawling all over her body. She feels an Itch over her whole body. She needs to get out of there. She washes her hands three times and closes the tap with her elbow, she does not want to touch any more germs. Then she nearly runs out of the rest room, enters the little Star Shop next to the garage and buys Coke, Simba Chips and biltong for the road. The sun is setting in the west and shining directly into her eyes.